Something Old

I think this drawing from 2002 was the first "pattern intensive" doodle I made. I guess some folks would call this a mandala ... I'm not sure it qualifies, but I like it.

Fun with Brown Paper 3

crazy kid ... another moleskine page doodle that started with a torn blob of brown paper.   Black Indian ink and white gel pens.

Next time I think I will plan ahead and scan the paper blob "pre-doodle", because it's always fun to see how the doodle evolved.

I have been looking around for some interesting doodle blogs to link in my sidebar ... it has been a challenge finding blogs with lots of doodles that are updated somewhat regularly.   If you've got a good one ~ send me the link!   I am a "pattern junkie".   I love crowded doodles with lots of characters & things going on.   I also love seeing doodled objects & unusual stuff.

Fun with Brown Paper 2

Another page in my moleskine that started with a torn piece of brown paper.

This one is quite a bit different from the first.   Each doodle develops in its own direction.

Done with black Indian ink and white gel ink.   Text was cut from random book pages.   It's funny how I can always find a few words that suit the drawing.

More to come.

Fun with Brown Paper

I love the way black and white inks look on brown paper.   So when I received a wad of brown paper as packing material, I decided to have some fun with it.

I tore a few random shapes from the paper and pasted the shapes in my moleskine notebook as a basis for my doodles.

The characters and images just sort of jumped out at me as I looked at the shapes.   The characters have so much personality!

I had some left over book pages from my mobile project, so I finished off this doodle with text cut from the pages.

I will be posting more from the series over the next few days.

book mobile

Sadly, I didn't win the contest over at Doodlers Anonymous ... but I ended up with a pretty cool mobile & had a good time making it.
Even though the mobile looks fairly simple, it took me 3 days & about 15 hours to complete.   (Lots of time with clamping and gluing and cutting and painting and waiting for glue and paint to dry.)

I removed pages from the book "The Key to Midnight" and glued them to layers of recycled cardboard to add weight and thickness.   I then doodled and cut objects from the pages and cardboard.

Objects hanging from the book include: a spiderweb and spider, key and lock, skull and bone, moon and bat, and a grandfather clock with adjustable clock hands and swinging pendulum.

The rest of the book I shaped, clamped, glued and painted to create the mobile base.   I pierced through the spine and threaded a black satin ribbon for hanging.   I pierced through the sectioned areas, attached black wire loops from which to hang the elements.   The elements were hung with black quilting thread.

Minor details: the spiders eyes are enhanced with red glitter glue & reflect the light, the skull element features the chapter page from "chapter 13" on one side and "chapter 31" on the other side, the clock has adjustable hands and a swinging pendulum, the mobile measures about 22" from the top of the book to the lowest element.

The book mobile makes some really great wall shadows as it hangs and slowly rotates, and was a nice addition to my Halloween decorations.

catching up

The week before Halloween, I made this really cool SECRET project for a contest over at Doodlers Anonymous.   I was hoping to post it here ... but the contest results have not yet been announced, so I will wait.   I have had my fingers crossed all week & boy is it hard to get stuff done with your fingers crossed all the time.

In the meantime, I actually managed to scan a page from my little moleskine notebook.

I call this page "Fun with Primary Colors".

I cut strips from a local map, tv listings, and a solved crossword puzzle and glued them to the page.   I then covered the page with a thin coat of gesso, before doodling shapes on top.   The page was doodled and colored with Faber Castell PITT artist pens.

*I love the translucence of the doodle blobs.